2. Fourteen Years Ago
PENNY
If you had asked me, at the age of sixteen, if I saw myself living at home at twenty-one, I would’ve laughed in your face. Yet here I was, at the beginning of my senior year of college, still waking up in my childhood bed and having breakfast with my parents and little sister, Kiki, every morning.
I had spent my entire life in this house. My dad was a microbiologist at a pharmaceutical company in Fort Collins, which paid just enough to send me to college but not enough for me to live in the lap of luxury in my own apartment, according to my practical father. We live five minutes away from Colorado State—and you have a perfectly good bed here. He wasn’t wrong, but still—it put a major damper on my social life.
My mom’s job was doting on Kiki. My sister was twelve years younger than me—definitely an oops baby. Even though my parents had always wanted a second child, they had given up all hope after ten years of trying, and then, “Oops! Here comes Kiki.” Where I was dark-haired and olive-skinned, like my dad, Kiki was blond and fair-skinned, like my mom. I always thought my mom liked Kiki better because of that.
Keeks had been on the pageant circuit ever since she was a baby, so the poor kid acted like a trained Pomeranian. Though I had nothing against pageants, I couldn’t understand why my mother was so determined to be a stage mom to my little sister when I was practically begging her to come to my ballet recitals. Mom had been a beauty queen when she was younger, but still . . . it never made sense to me why she couldn’t relate to ballet, too.
We ate breakfast together every morning in the kitchen, at the round wooden table, on country-style chairs. Dad would read the paper, Kiki would do her voice exercises, and Mom would cook and serve us, wearing the same apron she’d had since I was born. I would just sit there and wonder how I’d spent my entire life in the same city but had no social life to show for it.
“Why don’t you get involved in a school club or a sorority?” Mom asked as she slid runny eggs onto my plate. I grimaced. She was a terrible cook. I mean, how can you fuck up eggs? Especially when you make them three times a week?
“I have dance rehearsals every day, Mom. And right now, that’s enough.” I lied. It definitely wasn’t enough, but who was going to pledge a sorority as a senior?
“Well, why aren’t you friends with any of the girls in your program?”
I threw a look at Dad, but he ignored the conversation and instead shuffled through his newspaper quietly as Kiki continued trying to improve her vocal range.
I didn’t want to answer my mother’s question. The truth was that the girls in the program were absurdly competitive, and few of us had formed honest friendships. If I had said that, my mother would have come back with “Well, you chose dance as a major.” She liked to remind me of that fact, as if it were the worst decision of my life. We all knew I would’ve been at Juilliard or in a dance company by now if I really had the chops. But I loved dancing. I wanted to build my life around it, in any way I could.
All my high school friends had gone off to college in other cities, other states, and other countries, but I was stuck here, floundering on the Fort Collins social scene. I hadn’t had a boyfriend since high school, and aside from a few one-night stands my freshman and sophomore years, I’d been dateless. I needed to find something to do outside of school and dance. I needed to make friends and I knew it. But it was hard as a commuter, and as a senior. Everyone had already found their cliques long ago.
My sister’s voice was getting higher and higher. “God, shut up, Kiki, please! Mom and I are trying to talk.”
“Don’t be rude to your sister,” Mom snapped. “She has a pageant this weekend. She needs to prep for it.”
Kiki looked over at me like I was an alien. I pushed my eggs around the cobalt-blue plate.
My father looked at me over his specs. “Sweet Pea, clean your plate,” he said quietly. “It’s not that much food.”
Dancing was my life, but the rigor had taken its toll. There was pressure to be both skinny and strong, and I was always confused about what size I should be. I was definitely not the skinniest, and I wondered if that’s what had kept me from being an elite dancer.
While taking the tiniest nibbles of gross, slimy eggs to appease my father, I asked Kiki, “Do you even like being in beauty pageants?”
She smiled one of her sparkle-toothed smiles. “Of course I do.” I smiled weakly back at her. Poor thing.
“You’d think the people of Colorado would have learned their lesson by now,” I said.
My dad shot me a look of warning.
“What?” Mom said, wide-eyed.
“Mom, come on. You parade her around like she’s a miniature adult. Did you actually bleach her hair?” My mother glared at me. “This is JonBenét-level insanity.”
She turned her back on us and walked across the kitchen, dumping the frying pan into the stainless steel sink with a clang. She stormed into the living room, sniffling, as my dad glared angrily at me.
“What? She’s hard on me, too,” I said.
He shook his head. “That was horribly insensitive, and frankly, in poor taste. That poor little girl, JonBenét—”
“You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Growing up an hour away from Boulder in the nineties, I’d had my fill of JonBenét talk.
“Who’s JonBenét?” Kiki asked.
“Don’t worry about it, Keeks.” I patted her on the head and got up to go after my mom.
I found her sitting on the edge of her bed, crying. She was so fragile. So vulnerable. I looked around the room awkwardly while she sobbed into her hands. Her bed, with the floral comforter and frilly bed skirt, had been perfectly made like it had never been slept in. Her room was straight out of the show Dynasty. She even had one of those breakfast trays with little flowerpots on it, which sat perfectly in the center of the bed. It had never been used. She tried so hard to hold everything up and maintain appearances. I should have admired her determination more, but there was something desperate about it. Something that rubbed me the wrong way—especially since she had the bad habit of making biting comments about every single one of my choices. I never felt good enough for her, and I felt like I was constantly spoiling the image she was trying so hard to cultivate.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just think the pageant thing is a little over-the-top. Aren’t you afraid Kiki will burn out before she’s even a teenager?”
She looked up and scowled. “I never burned out on it when I was in pageants. When are you going to burn out on ballet?”
“I’m not unless I catch on fire.” I smiled.
“You’re so much like your father. Everything is a joke to you. Maybe things will be different when you graduate and realize you can’t keep chasing impossible dreams. Your dad will have to get you a job at the pharmaceutical company in the warehouse or something.”
It wasn’t the first time she had hurt me. It wasn’t even the first time that day. Why did she have to constantly make me feel like I was delusional for feeling passionate about ballet? “You don’t think I’m a good dancer, do you?”
She opened her mouth but hesitated. Time stood still as I waited, prepared for another not-so-subtle insult. “I think you’re a good dancer, Penny. I’ve always thought that.”
“Then why are you making me feel like my only option is to work in some warehouse?”
“Because dancing is not a job,” she said firmly.
“What are you grooming Kiki for? Twirling a glitter-filled baton across a stage while singing the National fucking Anthem? I’m athletic and I’m one of the best dancers in my program. Don’t tell me that doesn’t count for something.”
“You think the pageants are for nothing? How about public speaking and confidence?”
I laughed bitterly. “You’re right. Forget I said anything. I have to go, I’m gonna be late.” She’d win the argument no matter what. There was no point in drawing it out further.
“You’re still my daughter, and you’re still living under my roof. You need to show me some damn respect and clean up your language.”
That was as bad as her language got. The lone exception was when she’d had too much champagne at our neighbor’s Christmas party one year and said shit and piss in the same sentence. My dad had nearly choked to death on a cocktail weenie.
As I headed for the door in my warm-up sweats, slippers, and coat, my father stopped me.
“Sit down for a second,” he said. He took the duffel bag from my shoulder, set it on the floor, and gestured toward the chair beside the front door.
When I sat down, he knelt in front of me and removed one foot from its slipper. He began bending my toes forward and backward. He did this often to loosen up my feet. Without looking up, he said, “Are you going to be on pointe today?”
“Probably.”
“How much time do you have right now?”
“About three minutes,” I told him.
He pulled a tube of arnica cream from the side of my bag and began massaging it into my foot. I noticed in that moment that he was getting old. His hair was turning gray and he was getting an old-man belly, just above his belt.
“Sweet Pea, they look bad. You lost another toenail,” he said. “You also need to be wearing your boots out there, not slippers. It’s cold. It’s supposed to snow today.”
“I can’t wear the boots. They hurt too much. I’ll skip the studio this afternoon. Maybe go to the library and study.”
“Good.”
For some reason his kindness toward me made me emotional. He was the only one who believed in me. I found myself getting choked up and looked away as he continued to rub cream into my feet.
“How’s that feel? Better?” he asked.
I nodded and stood, put my slippers back on, and hugged him. “Thanks, Dad.” He always hugged me well.
“I’m proud of you, little girl.”
I couldn’t speak. He knew my mom was hard on me. It was nice to have one parent who knew how to be soft.
ONCE AT SCHOOL, I practiced a romantic modern dance routine with my usual partner, Joey. It was a beautiful piece, choreographed by Professor Douglas, a young, fun, easygoing guy who came onto the scene at CSU the year before. Douglas was his first name, but everyone started calling him P-Doug by the second semester of my junior year, and he just went with it. He jokingly said he’d base our final grades solely on our hip-hop routines. He had been a professional dancer until he tore his meniscus and had to have three surgeries before he could dance again. He’d never be a pro, so now he was our instructor.
The song he chose for Joey’s performance and mine was a “Wicked Games” cover. It was evocative and perfectly suited for the choreography. We had gotten the routine down pretty well except for the lifts, which wasn’t Joey’s strong suit. He was a graceful dancer, long and lean, but he liked to do solo work more than partner work. He wasn’t into girls, which shouldn’t have mattered, but it did to him. He’d never have a career in dance as long as he appeared physically repulsed by women. Most of the gay partners I’d had understood that acting was a part of dancing, unlike Joey.
Doug was sitting in the audience while we rehearsed onstage. “Do the second lift again,” he said. “Your line looks off, Joe.”
Joey had a crush on him, but I think Doug was straight, which made Joey extra sensitive to his remarks.
“My line?” Joey pointed to his chest.
“Yes,” Doug confirmed.
“That’s a hard lift and Penny wasn’t holding it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You feel heavier to me,” he said. “You feel shaky.”
I looked at Doug. “I’m five-foot-six and a hundred and thirteen pounds—and Joey thinks I’m too heavy for this lift?”
Doug shook his head. “Joey, you’re just off today, man.”
Joey crossed his arms, huffed, and then stormed offstage.
Doug and I were silent for a moment, until he started to cue up the music for my solo piece. “Doug, do you mind if we call it? I need to let my feet rest. I’m taking the night off from ballet, too.”
“Sure, Penny. You danced beautifully today. You were holding the pose with strength. You don’t need to be concerned about your weight.”
“Thanks, Teach.” I smiled before skipping back to the locker room.